The Assistant Proclamation
by TheMusicalWindmill
Summary: Sheldon hires an assistant against his will. What began for Lily as a compromise to get ahead becomes a complicated affair with one physicist. Amy fights, Penny reveals a secret & Shelly fails at love poems. Sparks fluff & nonsensical banter galore! New chapter rated T for a reason!
1. Chapter 1

Sheldon Cooper hated people. Even the people he spends most of his time with, but so often regrets, he merely puts up with because of, what he calls, our species' most primitive and menial demands for social interaction. And most people understood. In fact, most people didn't want this interaction with Sheldon, so people kept their distance, especially at Caltech where he works. Students never stopped by his office. Other professors and administrators approached him cautiously in the lab, but only when necessary. It wasn't fear, as Sheldon like to believe, people just didn't want to put up with his nonsensical, snide remarks. Yet, one afternoon, one girl ignored the rumors and warnings, and even the sign he posted outside his office discouraging everyone from stopping by unannounced.

Of course, the one time Sheldon felt comfortable enough to leave his office unlocked while he made a run to the lab, he came back to find an intruder. If the girl's presence in his office, sitting too comfortably with legs crossed, startled him, he didn't show it. Dr. Cooper simply angled towards her, expressing his usual apathy and mild interest.

"Hello." He seemed polite, but before she could greet him or introduce herself, he said in one long breath, "Since you either possess a perception deficiency or belong to the sad percentage of illiteracy in this _prolific _country (seeing as you failed to take the heed of my note), we may skip formalities, names; i.e. whoever you are or whatever you want, so that we may try this again." He put down his documents to take her by the shoulders and guide her forcibly out of his office. "We will start by you leaving, of course," he said before pushing her out of the room and shutting the door.

Then as he turned back to retrieve his papers, there was a timid knock, to which he chose to ignore. Sheldon flipped through the documents, reviewing his research, when he heard the knocking again- more confident and persistent this time.

"Go away," he sang over his shoulder.

But the knocking continued.

"Dr. Cooper? Dr. Cooper!"

Sheldon exasperated with the cave of his chest before cracking open his door, just wide enough to reach for his sign. He plucked it from the wall and stuck it to the girl's face. "You can reach me by email if you need an appointment."

"Dr. Cooper-!"

"Good day," he tried shutting the door but she threw her body into the office, falling through his barrier and landing on top of the physicist.

"Help! Help!" Sheldon squealed on the floor, writhing and pounding bones and fists. "Security! Security! University police!"

The girl covered his gasping mouth with one hand and tore the sign from her face with the other in a panic. "Shutup! _Shutup!"_

Sheldon was surprised at his attacker. Most girls who had pinned and beaten him in the past lied on the more butch side of femininity. This girl, however, resembled the more, what he called, "the archetypical woman": petite, dainty, and bearing small, symmetrical facial features. These were the kind who used sex and silence as their weapon of choice. Though small, her face was fierce, erupting in irritation, an expression he was accustomed to seeing on his neighbor Penny.

"Oh no," he groaned through her tiny fingers, "not another one!"

"Look," she said, "I'm sorry mister but this is an _emergency_." Her face was cooling but warmed again in embarrassment. With the paper in her face as she fell, it had taken her a moment to realize she was chest-to-chest, stomach-to-stomach, and even a little skin-to-skin with the man. She released him and scooted off - repeating her apologies. "I just," she tugged at her auburn hair, "I just need your help."

"Well a _fax _would have sufficed! You needn't attack me!"

"I'm sorry! But I had to see you personally, and I couldn't just leave-" She stopped herself, feeling a bit warm again. She realized how insane she sounded, but hell, she was desperate.

"What is this 'emergency'?"

She straightened her back and her petite features fell into a serious expression. "Dr. Cooper, my name is Lily Wood, and I wish you might consider making me your assistant."

It sounded rehearsed. Not even well rehearsed, he thought.

"No-"

"I know! I heard you never accept assistances," she said quickly, "but please, I'm begging you to reconsider."

Instead of humoring her case or explaining his firm refusal, Sheldon pursed his lips irritably. "You call this an emergency?"

"I'm-"

"The discovery of spatial quantization of angular movement in anything greater than a three dimensional space- now that's an emergency!"

"Um," she frowned for a second, "right, you know, you're totally right, but-"

"You don't know molecular biology, do you?"

"Of course, I do!"

"Oh for Heaven's sake!" Sheldon cried. "Obviously not, since that is one of the simpler notions of _quantum mechanics, _not molecular biology!" He muttered under his breath, "Good lord."

"Only because you tricked me! I was confused!"

"Fine." Sheldon crossed his arms and asked, "Then tell me, what is the uncertainty principle?"

Lily scrunched her face together and guessed, "Pi?"

Sheldon narrowed his eyes and said mockingly, "Like totally."

"Look, Dr. Cooper, please." Her voice was growing thick in desperation. "You don't understand how important this is."

"Just because your pursuit of acting or modeling or any other remedial choice of career path is getting, much to your surprise, nowhere with your current waitressing jobs and," he looked her up and down, "possible drug use, does not mean I will hire an assistant whose incompetence is simply _flabbergasting."_

Before Lily could further plead her case, a tall man in uniform entered the office. "University police," he announced. "We heard shouting."

Sheldon threw down his crossed arms with an irritated sound. "Well approximately one minute, forty-nine seconds ago! If this woman had the intent to kill, the entire hallway would be reeking of death and my released bowels by now!"

Both looked at Sheldon with a look of disgust, confusion, and an awkward ignorance of how to retreat.

"Well," the security man coughed, "I'll just show the young lady out then."

"Thank you!" Sheldon squeaked.

In the hallway, the security guard shook his head. "That guy's a real piece of work. You know, one of us has to run down here all the time thanks to that nut."

"Great!" Lily groaned. "So he's always like that?"

"Afraid so," he came to a stop by the front door of the building, standing between Lily and the outside world. "What were you doing there anyway? You don't seem like, you know, the _science _type." He leaned back and looked at her as if it were a compliment.

"What do you mean?" she asked with a frown forming.

He shrugged with a wide grin. "I mean you don't look like you belong here with these guys." He laughed and pointed with his thumb, "especially not that Cooper guy."

Lily laughed awkwardly, unsure how to react. "Really."

"C'mon. You're too, I dunno… cute I guess, to be hanging around here. Only sciencey, super Trekie nerds come around here."

Lily readjusted the strap of her purse. "You're saying I'm not 'sciencey'?" Her tone was declining in awkward tension and accelerating with defiance and frustration.

"Well no, I-"

"I'll have you know," she interjected loudly with a jabbing finger, "I am just as smart and nerdy and Trekie and-and-and _sciencey! _I do belong here!"

He lifted his palms up in defense. "Woah, okay! You don't need to go all Doctor-Cooper-crazy on me."

Lily shoved the man with the full force of her body, which only pushed him a few feet away. "Don't you talk about Dr. Cooper!" She regained her composure before marching out of the building with a misplaced gleeful smile that shined and stretched from cheek to cheek.

"I am his assistant after all!"

* * *

><p>Making his way up the flights of stairs in his apartment building, Sheldon was mumbling low to himself- wondering how he ended up in California. "I <em>should <em>be in Germany, Berlin perhaps, or maybe Frankfurt or Gottingen. I mean, that's where Max Born formulated the standard interpretation of the probability density function in quantum mechanics from Schrodinger's equation; of course it's also where he met Einstein and James Franck."

Like usual, Sheldon found himself breathless outside his door. He would get so caught up in his thoughts, he wouldn't realize how fast he would walk, stomp, and even climb. Sheldon scowled, thinking of how Penny always chides him for it.

"You always lose track of time when you argue with yourself! And I've seen you run into walls when you start getting serious," she once said. "You think too much, you need to think less."

So then Sheldon was stuck in the maze of mapping the logic, mechanics and algorithms of what, Penny claims, is thinking "too much" as he stepped inside his apartment. He was taken off guard to see all his male comrades sitting around staring at him. He made a quick, nervous gesture to look over his shoulder before asking, "Yes?" Surely, he thought, they understood by now the boundless limitations of his paranoia.

They all sat staring at him with baffled frowns and Howard's iconic pained look. Then they exchanged looks while shifting in their seats and opening their mouths to speak but grunt instead.

"Well," said Sheldon, "I do say I am absolutely buzzing from all your intelligent exchange of words but I have the new issue of Marvel to see to."

"Sheldon," Leonard interjected, "why is there a girl calling for you?" He looked confused at the same time trying not to laugh.

"Well I can't know about that," he said with Raj and Howard listening intently. "I am neither this girl nor a mind reader. If I were, I would know which one of you keeps off-centering the coffee table."

"This girl keeps calling here saying she has to talk to you-?"

Howard added with that creepy brow movement of his, "She said it's urgent she talks to you right away."

"Yeah," chimed in Raj, "and her name is _Lily!" _He held up his hands as if her name was displayed in suspension between them.

Sheldon dropped his bag in irritation. "Oh, good! More reason to fly off and take refuge in Germany."

"Shel-"

"Did she leave her number?"

"Yeah," said Leonard, handing him a post-it note with seven digits scrawled across it.

"Delightful." He reached for the phone and began dialing a number. "Now, I only need to contact our service provider to have this rogue pixie from Hell blocked from all our lines."

"Woah, woah, woah!" Leonard snatched the phone from Sheldon's hand. "Now wait a minute, Sheldon. Let's see what she wants first. I mean, let's face it, you may never get this chance with a lady again."

"First, Leonard, you should leave the attempts at humor to Howard who is a decimal degree greater in the respected area; second, I already know what this 'lady' wants, and I can say with confidence," he snatched back the telephone, "it most certainly is not as stimulating as you all may be insinuating."

"Then what is it?" asked Raj.

As Sheldon dialed their phone service, he simply replied, "Sex."

Raj looked shocked, but Howard guessed with his annoyed expression, "Bazinga?"

"Correct. Oh!" he said into the phone. "Hello, yes! My name is Sheldon Cooper and I believe I have the contact information of a person I'd like to restrict." He opened his mouth to respond to something said but stopped with a baffled frown. "Well, preferably forever."

Raj slumped his shoulders. "I guess we're stuck with Amy Fowler, then."

Howard agreed, "I don't think Sheldon will ever have another girlfriend."

"Yeah," said Leonard, "any potential (suitee/ candidate) he'll apply for a restraining order against."

Sheldon put his hand over the receiver. "No, I tried that. My lawyer says there's not enough 'just cause'."

There was a sudden knock at the door, and since Sheldon was closest and put on hold, much to his chagrin and objections, he answered it- only to shut it again immediately. "Oh, yes," Sheldon said into the phone as he wandered over to the balcony window, "I'm still on the line." And while he persisted to make various complaints about customer care, Leonard shuffled quickly to open the door.

"C-Can I help you?" He wished he had said it much smoother, but he wasn't expecting to see a girl.

"Yes, I'm so sorry to impose like this, but I'm Lily Wood and-"

"You're Lily?" Leonard asked with his awkward finger point.

"Um, yes?"

"Come in, come in!" He sang gleefully as he led her into the apartment.

A loud, dramatic and vowel-stretched "no" sounded and reverberated from across the room as Sheldon held his arms outstretched. "Leonard! How could you!"

"Dr. Cooper!" Lily hurried over with her hands clenched together. "Please, just hear me out!"

Sheldon, finding himself suddenly cornered, held up the phone as a weapon, screaming "back, back!"

"Yeah, Sheldon, just hear her out," Leonard said in his usual tone of thinning patience.

"That can be the policeman's job when I- hey!"

Leonard grabbed the phone away as if from a disruptive child. "Give me that!" He let Lily sit in his chair, saying, "Don't worry about him, he's just-" he paused to find the right word, and Raj quickly whispered into Howard's ear.

"No," said Howard, "'neurotic' is too human to give him credit for. I'd say 'rabid' or even 'extraterrestrial'."

"No, no," Lily interjected, "no, Dr. Cooper has every reason to be upset."

"What!" They all said, except Sheldon who exclaimed "thank you!" with a curt "now get out."

"Please, just say you will reconsider my case."

"What case?" Leonard asked.

"This _charlatan," _said Sheldon who hurried over, pointing his finger, "wants me to hire her as my assistant!"

While Raj and Howard sat back going "ohh", Leonard waved his hand in Lily's defense. "Oh just give her a chance, Sheldon. It's obviously really important to her."

Sheldon stamped his foot, "But she doesn't even know the uncertainty principle equation!"

Raj and Howard gasped in her direction with wide mouths, but Leonard took Lily's defense again. "Sheldon, not ever scientist can recite the origin of the uncertainty principle with every detail to fundamental concepts, experiments, modified interpretations in advanced topics, or every contributing scientist to its modernization and popularity off the top their head."

Sheldon crossed his arms with daring, slanted eyes. "I only asked for the formula."

Leonard too gasped wide-mouthed at Lily who sat blushing at her shoes.

"Okay, okay! Maybe I don't know a lick of physics."

"Then why do you want to be his assistant?" Howard asked. "I mean of all things," he muttered under his breath, "and of all people."

"Well," she began, "there's this really prestigious workshop in Iowa-"

"Iowa?"

"What sort of workshop?" Howard asked.

"Creative writing."

Sheldon winced.

"More specifically?" Howard pried.

"Poetry."

Sheldon winced louder, as if in real pain. "Well that's about as useful as protected recreational sex."

"I don't know, in Raj's country poetry is as well regarded as science," Howard said.

"Yeah, Sheldon, literature is important," chimed Leonard.

Sheldon gave them his usual expression, the one with his jaw iron tight and eyes combative. "You'll have Roger Penrose turning over in his grave, talking like that."

"Penrose isn't dead!"

"Obviously you don't wish to keep him that way!"

"Who," Lily asked, ignoring Raj and Howard's warning gestures.

Sheldon, who looked on the verge of a heart attack, took a breath to recite, "In 1967-" and the guys all fell back in their seats in defeat. "You had to ask," Howard whined.

"Yeah," said Leonard, leaning in, "this is how he got his first doctorate."

"Ahem," Sheldon coughed. "In 1967, Mr. Penrose first proposed a theory, the twistor theory if you will, for the motion of massless fields of arbitrary spin-"

"Okay, okay," Lily cut in. "I shouldn't have asked! Now I don't want to waste anymore of your time, so could you please-"

"Why would I hire you!" Sheldon exploded. "You clearly have no experience or even education anywhere near the field."

Lily made nervous gestures with her thumbs and forefingers. "Um, because I already told the director of the board of admissions at the University of Iowa that I was currently your assistant." It all came out in one fast stream of words, and she sat, teeth clenched and toes crossed, clinging to hope.

"What!"

They all were turned towards her, expecting to hear the story, and Lily felt her face becoming warm again. She knew she might have to eventually tell Sheldon how and why she lied, but she wasn't expecting an audience. She fingered the hem of her shirt again, muttering, "It just all sort of happened so fast and, well, I panicked." Lily looked at all of them with an embarrassed expression before telling them, "I'm not proud of this."


	2. Chapter 2

Lily felt confident sitting in the little space provided outside the board director's office. She breathed in the lilac air freshener while the morning light came in through the curtained windows. There were a few others waiting in chairs, looking over their portfolios in manila folders. Lily, though, wouldn't fall prey to double-checking and second-guessing. Her portfolio was solid, as were the answers she planned to give to possible interview questions. She even prepared for the trickiest of questions, because let's face it, they don't just let anyone with an assortment of prose and poetry into the most regarded creative writing graduate program in the country.

What Lily wasn't expecting, however, was the next crying applicant to come out of Lyn Samantha Chen's office, to reveal through her bleeding mascara the newly added requirement of acceptance: experience under any mentor of any expertise. Apparently, the school was sick of dealing with defiant, inflated egos, so they established this new requirement. The mentor could belong to any career field but had to have the highest available degree in that respected area.

A wave of nausea came over Lily. There was an uncomfortable moist in her hands and underarms. She was next in line to be evaluated and she was unprepared. She quickly grabbed a newspaper that was lodged between the seats and scanned its contents. All she needed was a name. She looked through arts and entertainment, but surely this woman would know all of their names. Lily tried business, but none of the names carried the Ph.D. title, only B.A. and M.A.

Suddenly, out of the panic gripping her little form, something bloomed warm and quick when she reached the small space devoted to science-related articles. Out of the three, there was only one mentioning of a specific individual. It was an interview with a theoretical physicist who has, not one, but two doctorate degrees.

_There's no way, _she thought, _she's ever heard of this guy._

So Lily scribbled down his information given in the article and, during the interview, everything went as smooth and promising as she had dreamed until, of course, those three words came out of her all-too-confident mouth: Doctor Sheldon Cooper.

Lyn Samantha Chen peered over her spectacles, and the room was suddenly suspended in an uncomfortable quiet. Luckily, Chen's lips opened into an unexpected smile. "Dr. Cooper? You mean, super gravity Dr. Cooper?"

Lily smiled despite the tension rising within her chest and face. _Why? Just…why? _"Yup," she said, trying to unclench her jaw. "That's him."

"Wow. That must be some honor," said Chen with that impressed smile stretching further than Lily thought possible. She made an effort to look through the rest of Lily's documents but stopped unsurely, as if wondering if she should say what she was thinking. "You know," she continued, finally decided to close the folder, "most people are surprised to learn that I'm a real physics buff."

_You don't say._

"I'm actually a big fan of your mentor, Ms. Wood. I'm sure you're well aware, how he was only sixteen when he basically redefined all theories concerning super gravity by reexamining the ultra violet property of multi loop. You're very lucky, you know, to be working for such a brilliant man."

"Oh,_ oh_ yes," Lily replied with a few unsure nods, "He's quite the genius."

"Just between us," Chen said more tenderly as she leaned in, "it's nice for once to see another writer interested in science. It's quite rare, actually." Lily was startled by Chen's suddenly delicate face with the sensitivity of the subject. "It can be quite discerning, can't it? Being the only nerd amongst peers- I understand it well. You're lucky to have someone like Dr. Cooper guiding you." She smiled at Lily like a caring grandmother, making Lily shift uncomfortably in her chair.

"Yes, thank you Dr. Chen."

"You could make a wonderful addition to our program, Lily Wood. It was wonderful to meet you. Be sure to leave your mentor's information along with your professors' recommendation letters and their information as well." She said it quickly, as if realizing the depth of her confession, and felt uncomfortable herself.

Lily gave her one last lingering look before leaving her office. She shut the door behind her with a heavy exhale, thinking of what all had just been said as the next applicant came up to the door and asked for her to move. She looked back at them, lost, and said the only comprehensible word she could manage, _Shit._


	3. Chapter 3

Leonard gaped with his eyebrows reaching for the ceiling. "Wow. Sheldon has fans?"

"You sound surprised!" Sheldon crossed his arms and came closer to Lily, circling around her with hard, squinted eyes. He resembled a vulture with his bulbous head and hump in his back sticking out of his thin frame.

"What-"

"Oh, don't mind me," he said, "I'm just looking for the zipper. If you are capable of crafting such a rouse, it's likely you're also a sociopath disguising oneself as a young woman. For all we know at this point you could be two forty-year-old small men in a girl suit."

Lily was becoming quickly adapted to Sheldon's ways; through his nonsense, she understood what he was trying to tell her. She took hold of his elbows to keep him from moving around her, much to his fighting objections.

"I'm sorry," she said timidly. She felt embarrassed by her child's lie and a fistful of biting shame for hunting, begging, and pleading before this robotic vulture. "You're right, I'm sorry. I didn't consider how this might affect your career or even your reputation; I'm sorry for that. I _am!" _she said, raising her voice when Sheldon expressed his critical disbelief. "I never should have involved you, I regret it, but it happened! What's done is done. If you accept me as your assistant, you won't even have to pay me and I can be a real help-"

"Hah!" Sheldon squealed.

"Can you at least just _say _she's your assistant when what's-her-face calls?" Leonard whined, stepping in between the two. After spending seven years with Sheldon's Asperger's or autism or whatever social deficiency he had, he knew him to still be unpredictable in arguments with strangers.

"Are you suggesting I lie, Leonard?"

"I don't think it would be enough, anyway." Lily said as she fingered the hem of her shirt. "Dr. Chen was so excited about my fake-mentorship with Cooper, I'm sure she's going to want to hear all about it. She was so open and sincere; I don't want to lie to her again!"

Sheldon opened his mouth to speak but, knowing what he was going to say, Lily suddenly burst out, "I can't tell her the truth, either! If I come clean I won't get accepted!"

"Iowa, right?" Leonard asked.

"Yeah."

"There you go, Sheldon! Let her help you around for a few days so she can go to Iowa and get out of your hair forever."

"No, Leonard. No, Ms. Herbaceous Flowering Plant."

Raj, growing tired of the back and forth circular chatter, whispered into Howard's ear.

"Hey, yeah, good idea. This would be a good time for your favorite, Sheldon! Rock, paper, scissor, lizard, Spock!"

Leonard, for the first time, seemed delighted to hear the game proposed, but Sheldon shifted uncomfortably under everyone's gaze. He would rather have the policemen come take the girl away, but he always relished a good competition- especially in rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock.

"Well," he said with a few jerks of his craning neck, "alright. I suppose." He couldn't help the excitement that crept upon his face into an eerie smile. The guys never played it with him anymore. "The rules are simple." After he went through the quickly-worded rules of the game, Sheldon planted his feet to brace himself for a "compelling game."

"Ready?"

Lily nodded, and they both held out their fists.

"Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock!"

Sheldon held out his Spock hand proudly only to face the lizard Lily's hand was making.

"NO! Leonard! You helped her cheat!"

Lily bounced and giggled while a happily shocked Leonard shook his head. "Actually, I told her to do Spock."

Lily stopped bouncing and brushed the frayed hairs from her face to say almost out of breath, "Well, I could tell by looking at him, if he were to be anything it would be Spock! So I went with lizard! Lizard poisons Spock, lizard poisons Spock, lizard poisons Spock!" she sang like a mocking child.

"I would normally suggest best two out of three," said Sheldon in jerking movements, "but I am rather pleasantly surprised that you out-smarted Leonard Hofstadter." Leonard rolled his eyes as Sheldon muttered at his shoes, "Not that it's that difficult of a position to establish."

Lily jumped and clapped and grabbed Sheldon's hands. "So, yes?" she squealed. "You'll be my mentor!"

Sheldon turned his body awkwardly away from her, unable to tear his hands from her fevered grip. "We can start tomorrow at nine, but arrive to sign our agreement contract."

"You're kidding."

Sheldon looked at her blankly. "I don't do that." He snatched back his hands and strode happily towards the computer. "I can make up the contract now!" He took his seat to get to work, but suddenly turned to say, "Since you were so free to show yourself here, you are just as free to show yourself home."

"Wont' you walk me out?" Lily asked, glancing at the window. "I didn't realize how dark it got."

Before one of the guys could jump up to guide her, Sheldon stood back up. "I suppose. I'm sure Bruce Wayne prevented many an injustice by walking with easy targets of grey." He glanced at Lily, whose petite form only reached as far as mid-chest. Even Penny, who he considered average height and weight, came up to about his cheeks. And Amy came up as far as his shoulders. This girl was much frailer than both Penny and Amy. Penny generated a brute strength and most people are intimidated by Amy if not for her prevailing intellect, for her demeanor of absolute superiority.

"Thanks, doctor," she said with her head bowed in her bashful state. "I'm terribly afraid of the dark."

As they made their way down to the lobby, Sheldon explained to Lily how silly her fear is. "It's completely illogical and irrational. The absence of light bears no threat. Now, fear of possible attackers, animals, and thrifty marauders who use the dark to your disadvantage is quite the opposite." He opened the door for Lily, who stood nervously hunched, peering outside.

"Do you really think there's marauders?" she whispered.

"Aw," said Sheldon plainly with a snap of his lips, "aren't you precious."

Lily didn't quite understand but nonetheless, she kept close to Sheldon as he walked her to the bus stop on the corner. When the bus finally came, Lily tried to give her thanks again, but Sheldon said quickly, "Well here you go. Goodnight," and turned away immediately. Lily was left to board the bus alone with her tiny hand slightly raised to wave goodbye to the ghost of Sheldon's slightly hunched back.

* * *

><p>Back inside the lobby Amy Farrah Fowler waited by the stairs, holding the strap of her messenger bag as rigidly as usual.<p>

"Oh! Good evening, Amy," Sheldon greeted with a cheerful smile. "What bring you here-"

"Who was that?" Amy interrupted with her plain, inquisitive tone.

Sheldon jerked his head and said curtly, "I'd rather not discuss it."

As the couple made their way up the stairs, their loud voices could be heard from inside the apartment.

"Now what did you do, Sheldon?" Leonard shouted over their arguing when they came in. He felt a deep headache festering, on the rise from Sheldon's never-ending condensations at high volumes and frequencies. "Can you please stop picking fights tonight?"

Sheldon threw his arms down with an expression of angry shock. "Me! If you're looking for the perpetrator of your current discomfort and annoyance, please look no further than Amy Farrah Fowler. She started it!"

"Amy?"

She folded her hands and said, "Dr. Sheldon Cooper expressed enough care for the well-being of an attractive young woman to see her safely on the bus. I would not be so discordant if he would only admit the truth."

"Which is?" Leonard wasn't even trying to hide his annoyance anymore.

"She thinks I want to have coitus with that crazy Libby Wood character!"

"Whaat?" Leonard made a rude face towards Amy in his irritation, but he quickly shook it off and raised his hands. "No, nevermind. I don't want to hear anymore." He said as he retreated. "Sheldon, you handle this one."

"Well where did Raj and Howard go?" Sheldon asked, motioning towards their empty spots on the couch.

"Oh, they heard Amy's voice, so they're hiding in my room."

Amy looked more satisfied than offended. She muttered something intellectually smart-alec which the boys both ignored.

"Defend me, Leonard!"

But Leonard's back was already retreating and, with a final turn and salute, he disappeared into his room.

Sheldon shifted awkwardly, and said towards the floor, "Well goodnight!" and tried to make a run for his own room, but Amy grabbed the collar of his shirt.

"Sheldon." Her voice remained as vacant as her face. On a few occasions it bored Sheldon because more and more the contents of her words became less interesting as she liked to talk about him and the time she spends with him.

Sheldon remembered the days when they went back and forth from neurobiology to theoretical and applied physics; he even enjoyed entertaining her theories as to how neurobiology contributed more to society than any other branch of study. Now, she mostly spoke critically of the time she spent shopping with Penny and how he could spend less time on "cheap science fiction graphic novel banter" in order to spend more physically intimate moments with his girlfriend.

"Sheldon, as far as I know, when a couple hits what is called a 'rough patch', the most effective solution is communication. I would like to proceed with this method because I am willing to work things out if you are as well."

"I am," he responded curtly.

"Great. Now explain. Communicate."

Sheldon crossed his arms tightly with a grunt. "You can't make fun of me, though."

"Agreed."

After a warning look, Sheldon explained, in his Shelly way, how Lily Wood "barred her way" into his life. He painted her out to be the caricature of white women: incredibly weak minded and helpless, yet bearing near super-human abilities of manipulation.

"You were assisting a young girl in distress." Amy nodded with approval. "Sounds plausible- commendable even." She even let slip a tiny smile. "It's like having a super hero for a boyfriend."

They went back and forth deliberating over extraneous, scientific details of possible super powers, costume choices, alibis for the secret outings, and even who they would allow to later join in secrecy as the sidekick. They decided on Raj under on the grounds of Raj's character to be easily persuaded and, out of the three, he could keep a secret the longest.

"Well, Captain Brilliancy of the Known Universe, I suppose I should take my leave now."

"Yes, you're right." Sheldon nodded politely before turning to go to his bedroom. He didn't get passed the array of furniture when Amy stopped him.

"Sheldon, one last thing."

"Yes?"

"Admit you found the woman attractive."

"Amy," Sheldon warned, brows raised condescendingly.

"Sheldon." Amy tossed back, brows flat on her bemused face.

"We've already discussed this. I-I," Sheldon cleared his throat in an obvious gesture of discomfort and embarrassment. "I am hormonally inept."

Amy dropped her gaze for the first time that night and muttered, "How could I forget?"

Sheldon, not understanding the context of her rhetorical question, retorted with a surprised expression, "Yes, that is rather uncharacteristic of you. I mean without your ability to remember the most singular details, your IQ would be closer to Leonard's standards! Not to worry, you must be suffering from lack of REM sleep."

Amy sighed as she made her way out. "I swear your asexuality can be insufferable."

"And nonnegotiable!" Sheldon chimed innocently. "Good night, Amy Farrah Fowler."

She left, feeling confident in both her and his intellectual analysis on where her boyfriend lay emotionally and sexually, but as she passed by the bus stop, she couldn't shake the overcast that shrouded over everything: her body and mind and the dull thumping in her bones that she had spent so many years ignoring. He always told her how he found her superior to most people, but on that night, Amy couldn't place her finger on the empty feeling growing in her. She had no choice but to walk home alone and pretend to forget; all the while Sheldon dreamt, like a warm child in bed, of lily flower blossoms carrying him up to Spock's ship that lay waiting in the clouds calling "Dr. Sheldon Cooper".


	4. Chapter 4

Lily loved most people, and of all kinds: from the selfless to the cruel because they all found a way to inspire her poetry. Every stereotype and unique character, however rare, all seem to lyrically communicate something about the beauty of the human condition. She was a real people's person, mostly for her interest in the faults and triumphs of other people. One would think this would have all changed the day she met the challenging, emotionally void, Sheldon Cooper. For someone who thrives off the deepest scales of human emotion, a character like Dr. Cooper would normally repel an artist like herself. Lily Wood, however, was surprised at just how taken she was with the asexual physicist.

After she went home, she drew up some plans she had for the next collection of poems or even a possible creative nonfiction piece, both of which Sheldon Cooper had inspired. She went through possible lines and titles in her head: "Logical", "The Analytic", even "The Real Spock", etc. She was growing more and more excited about her opportunity with Dr. Cooper by the second.

Her pen zoomed and soared and dotted hurriedly across pages with ideas. To deter Dr. Chen from any physics related or systematic questions about her mentorship, Lily could go on about the mind of a true scientist in lyrical prose: the beauty of such a mind, the unique display of expression and self-worth; oh! How Lily could go on and on for hours.

In the bedroom of her tiny apartment, Lily finally dropped the hot pen from her hand and leaned back into her chair, smiling so hard it hurt. "Dr. Sheldon Cooper," she cried up at the ceiling, "you are an absolute goldmine!"

She had spent the rest of the night until the early hours of morning, googling all she could out of Sheldon's line of physics. She could memorize names of scientists and theories and properties and discoveries, but it was impossible to learn their contents. She stared for half an hour at a blog dedicated to explaining the uncertainty principle. She had it all memorized but couldn't understand what any of it meant. Why couldn't you know both the position and momentum of something? Was that even what it was saying? The first part of the equation seemed simple enough. You just plug the position in for the first little triangle thingy, "Dx", right? But how is a position a number? And where is this pi coming from?

Lily felt overwhelmed. She tried to calm the tightening anxiety that was growing, throwing her into a panic and bringing stinging tears to the surface. "It's okay, it's okay," she told herself threw gasping breaths. She could take one step at a time, _yeah_. She would get the hang of it after a few days. It would all work out. Lily felt she had successfully prevented another one of her panic attacks, because she this was something she had to do. She _could _do this. She will surprise everyone, even Dr. Cooper.

* * *

><p>But Dr. Cooper was not surprised.<p>

As Lily struggled to complete or even understand cryptic tasks in the lab the next day, Sheldon stood nearby shaking his head and commenting on every mistake she made.

"Look!" She finally whipped around with her face in a frenzy. "Maybe these mistakes wouldn't have happened if you'd help me! Or even took the time to help me understand!"

"Now hold on!" Sheldon retorted in his squeaky voice. "These catastrophes to science only happened because you don't know what you're doing, that's not my fault. I am not to blame, since you are forcing me to let you work here." He shrugged his bony shoulders and fidgeted with one of the atom balls, muttering, "Not my fault you can't tell a radioactive isotope from the peace symbols you were as berets."

"I'm not that stupid!" she yelled, fingering the berets in her auburn hair. Sheldon gave her a look she knew to say _oh contraire. _"And I didn't force you! You agreed! We both made agreements. If I won that stupid game, I got to be here; if you won, I would leave you alone, and I won, fair and square! So get over yourself and help me!"

Sheldon moved awkwardly in his place as he's known to do, like a spiteful child. "It's not a stupid game…take it back."

"Only if you take back all you've said about me today!"

"Fine!" He jerked his head and said with as much difficulty as he had admitting Amy as his girlfriend, "You're not stupid. I'm sure whatever rhyme of words you put into lines and meters are just brilliant," he said with an awkward waving of his hand.

"Lily recognized Sheldon's failed attempt at sarcasm. She raised a brow and said, "They are! I'm good at what I do, _Sheldon._" He tried to object to her informality, but she continued on and even raised a threatening hand as she did so. "You may not respect my line of work, just as I don't care much for yours, but you _will _respect me."

"Well that wasn't in the written agreement."

They went on like this for hours. So much time was spent bickering and hopelessly negotiating unimportant terms of agreement, that hardly anything in the lab was accomplished, so Sheldon decided they would change course and work in the office.

"We can file some paperwork on the failed research from today." He put so much emphasis on "failed" as he looked at Lily, that she felt the frustrated tears coming on again. She knew it wouldn't be easy, trying to catch up with some of the most elementary concepts, but with him as her guide, she felt even more overwhelmed than before. And no matter how she argued or pleaded, he would only blame her and make her feel stupid beyond help. Her chest was knotted and tight, and her face was growing warm.

"Stop!" She whined with a thinning voice, almost resembling a child.

"You got yourself into this predicament," Sheldon said offhandedly as he unlocked his office door and went in, and Lily dumped herself into one of his seats and cried, "I know!" The tears were filling her eyes and began to drip down as she sat with her fallen shoulders shaking slightly, causing Sheldon to panic and fidget nervously.

He's seen girls cry, especially at the university: students and faculty members alike. He even saw Penny cry in a very similar situation, but Penny and the others seemed to have more advancement in maturity and sense. This one worried him with her radical emotions. She either displayed extreme happiness or extreme anger or even this extremity of pitiful distress. She shook and cried as Sheldon looked on, feeling helpless.

But that wasn't all he felt. The way Lily kept tugging at her bright ginger hair and wiped at her nose, reminded Sheldon of how he used to make his sister cry as kids. His sister always wanted to play classic children's games like tag and hide-and-go-seek, games Sheldon found dull and pointless. He would alter the games, create new rules and obstacles to make them more challenging, but his sister Missy struggled to the point of falling down crying.

"I can't do it, Shelly!" She'd cry.

"Sure you can! You just-" but she would wail and pull her pigtails.

One time, Sheldon gave in and offered to play the regular version, but she shook her head and cried on. "Well what then?" he asked.

She sniffed and raised her little arms up towards him. He felt uncomfortable but the tender pain in his twin's heart echoed around his own. He made an irritated sound, but sure enough, he kneeled down and hugged his sister until she breathed easily again.

This woman was not his twin, but he did feel that tender ache coming on. He cursed it and blamed the psychological science of memories and experience.

Lily, with her eyes shut tight, tried to sniff away the rush of tears and sobs. She tried to gain hold of herself and apologize, but suddenly felt another body wrapped around her. There was a long, thin arm around her shoulders and another across her back. With her eyes still closed, Lily took in the moment with all her other senses.

He certainly didn't feel as hard and bony as he looked; he was soft and surprisingly warm. She also expected him to smell like chemical-based soap and Purell, but instead she smelt shaving cream and a musk she recognized from when she used to lay on her father's pillow. Sheldon Cooper certainly felt and smelled like a regular man.

She had the urge to hug him back, but she already knew the physicist to be skittish in any kind of simple social interaction, so she cautiously placed her hands, softly and barely touching, on the back of his ribs, and her legs clenched so they wouldn't move and accidentally bump his stick ones that stood in between hers. It was awkward for both of them, mostly Sheldon, but Lily remained still in the chair and took in as much of him as she could.

Suddenly there was a knock, and Amy Farrah Fowler was standing in the doorway, clutching her messenger back as rigid as usual. "Sheldon?" she said simply with her flat brows on her painfully average face making the tiniest shadow of a frown.


	5. Chapter 5

**For all of you Shenny's out there, I added a little something just for you. Enjoy.**

* * *

><p>Lily took a big, green glass bottle of wine and drank until things made sense. She had been saving it, or maybe avoiding it, because she never cared for the taste. Sitting with her bottle in front of a computer, she stared at what was supposed to be her next best work, but she just couldn't get the words right. She couldn't focus enough on the artistry of words and phrases because she couldn't get her mind out of one particular scene with Sheldon Cooper.<p>

She took another swig to help shake the goose bumps tickling her arms. Gulp after gulp she hoped to forget the feeling, the sensation of Sheldon against the skin of her neck. But more than anything, she wanted to forget the freezing of her spine when he pulled away from her, when the warmth and musk was fading fast. The thought of how a disapproving whimper almost escaped her throat, embarrassed her and worried her and agitated her to no end; all because Glasses in the doorway called for him with that proud sense of ownership.

She collapsed on her bed, brooding and breathing terribly. Her face hurt from frowning and making crazy faces all night at herself. How easily her emotions swayed! So now she drank and cursed, knowing it was really nothing. Lily Wood simply found herself too easily wrapped up in a moment that, deep down, meant nothing to both her and Sheldon Cooper, but too easily she would slip back into the memory with the smell and feel of him, and _no! No, _she thought, _I was just taken off guard. He's a grown man. It's only natural I would feel a little something with such, _she sighed, _tender contact._

Yet still she sat thinking of the girl in the glasses, and how her throat closed up when she heard her announce herself as Sheldon's girlfriend. It wasn't that he was taken, it wasn't that a bird-face in her grandmother's clothes got to touch the skin of his chest, but, well, she didn't know exactly what it was. Which is way she drank.

* * *

><p>Amy drank too, against Sheldon's objections. Penny fixed her another cocktail in her apartment and asked, "Well, why are you crying to me? Sounds like you need to be talking to Sheldon. He's just across the hall."<p>

Amy shook her head lazily back and forth. "No good with him," she slurred.

"Yeah, there's no clear way to get through to that man."

"Affirmative." Amy shook her head bitterly. "Thank God for that ass, though."

Penny made an effort not to sneer. She didn't feel comfortable hearing someone talk about Sheldon's ass. He was better than that, right? He's beyond that sort of lewd attention. He's a genius beyond comparison; a bratty one, yes, but also a kind one who was always willing to help her through everything. If anything, Amy should be groveling over that massive mind of his. _You don't deserve that genius, _Penny scowled.

Amy misread the expression. "Oh don't judge me. You find large, sweaty men attractive and I don't criticize your taste. I just-!" She choked suddenly and started to cry through her hiccups. "I just don't get it! He asked me, _ME_ to be his girlfriend!"

Penny winced inwardly and snapped, "Okay! What's your point?"

She downed the rest of her cocktail and slammed down her glass. "The point is I'm his girlfriend. I try and try and _try_," Amy choked back a sob,"but he never shows an interest! I have to bribe him with-with _comic books _and-and-and even blackmail! All just to get a hug or two!" She sobbed into her glass with Penny trying her best to be comforting, but instead she adopted the guys' pitiful gesture of an awkward "there, there."

"I-I mean," Amy continued, "I had to basically ambush a kiss on him! So how can he show that much love for her so easily!"

"Sweetie, it's not love! The girl was crying and you know Sheldon and the boys don't know how to handle an emotional woman."

"I don't care, Penny! Look, I'm shaking. My Amygdala is buzzing!"

"Your what?"

"It's the nuclei in the brain which serves a primary role in processing emotions, of course."

"Oh, yeah."

"Also," Amy sniffed, "it decides what memories to keep, and some believe it determines the sexual orientation of an individual. I'm sure if I could just get in there-"

Penny shouted the first words that came into her head. "How about you just fight her instead!" When the suggestion drifted over Amy's face, Penny tried to retract her words. "I-I mean by _fight_, of course, I mean with that big ol' brain of yours. Yeah, you could out smart her!"

It was too late. Amy was rising from her seat in sudden anticipation. "No, I think this is just what I need!" She slipped and tumbled over her footing. "I'm going to participate in what you people call a 'beat down'. You're always telling us how your kinfolk in Nebraska do it!" She almost fell over the couch trying to throw on her coat.

"Where are you going?"

Amy made a drunken sly face that looked more like a child bursting to tell a secret. She slurred in between her giggles and hiccups, "I snuck her information from Sheldon's desk when he wasn't looking."

"Oh God!"

"I'm going to finish this!"

Penny tried to grab her but she was barreling out of the apartment and tripping down the stairs faster than Penny thought possible. She yelled and threw miscellaneous items at Amy, but nothing was going to stop her. Not the door to the building she ran into, not the crowds of people on the sidewalk, and not even the car that almost hit her in the street. Penny had to forcibly drag her away from where she stood yelling at the driver and lead her to her car.

"Great! So you'll help me!"

Penny gave a lengthy 'noo'. "I'm only doing this so you won't get killed, you drunk, but we are not fighting anybody. I will take you so we can get this whole thing sorted out." Amy tried to make a witty response involving her sorting things out with her fists, but Penny rolled her eyes and hoped she would pass out before they got to the address Amy was thrusting at her.

As the lights of buildings and passing cars lit quick streaks through her little car in reds and yellows and greens, Penny tried gulping down the sick that was coming over her. She never imagined she would be helping two girls dish it out over who got to have Sheldon's affection. She never imagined Sheldon would even have a girl in general. While Amy mumbled angry words at the window, Penny remembered a time when it was just her and her boys, mainly Sheldon: how he would single her out in the group with innocent intentions (but she liked to believe it was a natural desire of his manhood), how he knocked on her door every day, and how handsome he looked in the black suit she picked out. For the first time, he looked like a real man, and she wished she had said something then, when she had the chance. But now, she was pulling up to an apartment building with his drunken girlfriend who was bent on kicking another girl's ass for "trying to steal him". Penny got out of the car and sighed, blowing the last of her hope and luck to the wind.

* * *

><p>Lily wasn't sure how to react to seeing Glasses at her door, slumping over another woman and pointing with some drunken force. She had been saying a lot, but Lily couldn't make any of it out. The other blonde girl kept apologizing and eventually asked if they could talk.<p>

She let them in cautiously and asked, "What is this about?"

"Sheldon is my boyfriend!" Amy yelled quickly, forcing her body forward.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I don't-" Her words just fell in the air. Glasses was making her nervous, the way she shook her clenched fists and breathed out of her flared nostrils, and especially by how the blonde girl had to make an effort to stand between them. The blonde apologized again but before they both knew it, Glasses had lunged towards Lily with her fists raised.

Lily moved out of the way, and Glasses fell, hitting her head on the floor. She didn't make any sound or movement; she just lied where she had landed, where her head had made a loud thump on the wooden floor. Penny rushed towards her and flipped her body over, checking for air. "I think she's just knocked out."

Lily didn't make any sign of hearing her. She just stood shocked, shaking her head slowly.

"I'm so sorry about this."

Lily still didn't seem to hear; she kept her eyes on Amy's still form, trying to grab hold of her senses.

After a moment, she said quietly, "I have wine."

* * *

><p>Penny giggled and she refilled her glass, "You know, nobody ever thought Sheldon could get a girl, especially not two!"<p>

"You misunderstand, Penny." Lily found herself giggling too, she couldn't help herself. "I'm not after him! I don't see him like that."

"Then why was my friend," Penny slurred, "so determined on kicking your ass tonight? She said that embrace you guys shared was pret-ty 'intimate'." She used her fingers as quotations with a mocking face. "I tried telling her that's just Sheldon not knowing what to do with a crying lady, but she wouldn't listen, said it was more than he's done for her."

Lily digested this as she ran her finger over the rim of her glass. It excited her, and that was what worried her. "Well," she eventually said, "what do you think?"

"I think, Sheldon is eccentric. He is just _so _useless when it comes to people skills; I mean the man's a walking social faux pas."

"Yeah, I've noticed." She was hoping for more, but she hid her disappointment and tried to wave it off with a smile. "Poor guy's just so smart in different areas."

There was a thickening silence to which the girls both stared into their wine, not deep enough to see their own pathetic reflection, but enough to help one another gain hold of the hearts in their throats. For a while the only audible sound was Amy's heavy breathing on the floor.

"You know," said Penny, "he grabbed my boob once."

Lily tried to look like she found this funny, but she felt more like shoving the girl out of her apartment. "Really? That's funny."

"Yeah," she said with an empty laugh. "I dislocated my shoulder and needed his help getting dressed. I had him close his eyes, so he couldn't see what he was doing. It was an accident… just, you know, an _accident._" She suddenly had that face Lily remembered Dr. Chen wore, the one with a little bit of pain and a little bit of hope. Lily knew there was something more, something more personal about the accidental-boob-touching incident that Penny wanted to share. She hoped she wouldn't, but she did.

Penny took a swig of her wine. "I always wondered what if it hadn't been on accident, you know? What if he was a normal boy with normal urges and desires? What if he wanted to touch me or wanted me like a normal boy wants a girl?" She smiled at Lily like it was the only thing keeping her from crying. "It wasn't until him and Amy got serious did I think of it. Never know what you got 'til it's gone, huh?"

Lily couldn't help the melting in her chest watching her confess. She wanted to say, "But you never had him!" and throw them both out, but she couldn't help it. If a girl pours herself out this way to her, trusting her with such exposed nerves, she can't help the natural blooming in her chest, the urge to help and comfort a sister. She resisted enough to just sip casually at her wine, watching the passing lights of the cars out her window soar by.

* * *

><p>The next morning, after Amy recovered from vomiting and pounding headaches, she took Penny's advice and went to Sheldon's to talk. He made the usual remarks about her drinking habits and she made the usual rebuttal about the role it holds in social interaction.<p>

"Don't you get enough interaction with Penny?"

"I suppose I do. To tell you the truth, I drank because I was upset."

"Enough to delude your brainwave capacity with alcohol?"

"I would like to discuss altering the paradigm of our relationship."

Sheldon crossed his arms uncomfortably and jerked his head. "Which part?"

Amy stepped closer and placed her hand on his arm. It was awkward, like reaching your hand out to a deer who might take off at any sudden movement. "The physical, of course." Sheldon seemed comfortable enough with her on his arm, so she moved more closely into him, and slowly put her other hand on his chest.

"Opinion?" she asked.

"Well," he said thoughtfully with an incline of his head, "this certainly isn't too awful. I suppose if you would be more satisfied with our relationship, I could permit such touching."

"You would have to touch me back, of course," she said, motioning towards his arms that remained limp by his sides. With a pained look, he made an effort to pull her into an embrace. It was another slow, awkward process in which he was able to put one arm around her waist and another across her back. Amy tried to snuggle into the nape of his neck but he jerked it away.

"Is there a problem, Sheldon?"

He suddenly jumped out of her arms and flailed his own. "I just can't!" he screamed like a wild man.

"Sheldon," Amy pressed, "as a woman, I have needs. Needs that cannot always be satisfied by an electric toothbrush. I have the working hormones, genitalia, and a healthy sex drive. Since you also have most of these, I believe after a process of conditioning, we can have a healthy sexual relationship."

"Healthy sexual rela- Amy! No, that's not fair! I specifically remember stating there would be no physical changes if you became my girlfriend! I've been lenient enough as it is!"

"Circumstances have changed. I don't know how much longer I can continue this relationship without getting some kind of emotional satisfaction."

"I thought you wanted sexual intercourse."

"I do. I would like my boyfriend to show me he wants me as a girlfriend, not a colleague. In relationships as long as ours, sex is both physically and emotionally satisfying."

"Amy, are you trying to present me an ultimatum?"

"I believe I am. There is no point in the two of us continuing this charade of a relationship if you cannot at least agree to try and work our way through first, second, and third base so that we may eventually have intercourse."

Sheldon nervously clenched and unclenched his hands and jerked about, unsure what to say or do.

"You don't have to decide now," said Amy. "I'll give you some time to think about it." And with a polite nod, Amy left, leaving Sheldon shifting in skin. He let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it, and tried to analyze the tightening in his stomach. It was a hard knot he felt as he frowned at the dartboard hanging on the door, thinking through all the algorithms and systematics of either decision. As his thoughts raced, he mumbled softly to himself, and Sheldon didn't realize he was soon comparing the physical interactions between Lily and Amy with a strange warmth undoing the knot in his gut.


	6. Chapter 6

**Heads up, this a dream chapter. No lemons, but there's still a little something. I didn't feel it was enough to change the rating, but I'll let you all be the judge. Enjoy.**

* * *

><p>That night, a man and a woman dreamed.<p>

Sheldon Cooper found it difficult to sleep as his thoughts still raced with how to respond to Amy's ultimatum. Could he have sex? Sure, but did he particularly want to? No, but was it worth ending his relationship with Amy? He remembered the frustration he felt when she lusted after one of Penny's old boyfriends and when she went out with Stewart. Sheldon was sure Amy would find another companion in order to please her mother's demands. Before he drifted into unconsciousness, Sheldon debated if it was such a bad thing.

The idea followed into his dream. He was on his back in a bed he didn't recognize, which somehow didn't bother him. Germs didn't worry him and he didn't even think of all the possible contaminations in another person's bed. Instead he listened to a soft melody playing, one he seemed to know. Suddenly there were bare breasts pressed against him, and he flipped their bodies so he had more control. His clothes dissolved from his body, and the dissolved particles swarmed around the room in a golden, pixelated dust. They glowed and glimmered, giving them a soft and flickering light. He was moving his hands over her pale skin, but favored the flesh of her breasts. Sheldon cupped them over and over again because they fit perfectly in his hands and he liked the way the nipples seemed to poke back at him.

Her body flipped them again so she was on top, gripping his chest. She slowly bent down to kiss him, her auburn hair tickling his face, and he was reaching as well. Before he could even feel her breath on his lips, she pulled away with her hands over her face and whispered if he could turn on the light. Then there was this echo of a voice from his memory with a sweet reverberation, "I'm terribly afraid of the dark."

Before Sheldon could reach for the lamp, she was disappearing.

_Wait, _he tried to say but found his voice was mute. He grabbed her shoulders but as soon as he did they disintegrated into a river of lilies and cherry blossoms. _Wait! _They were swirling and mingling with the gold dust of his clothes around their bodies and around the bed. He tried keeping her petite body intact but soon she was just a face covered by what was left of her hands. _Wait!_

"Dr. Cooper?" Her voice was a fading echo amongst the flower blossoms. "Do you really think… _there's marauder_s?"

Sheldon woke suddenly, shooting upright with his legs jostling about. His breath came in and out slowly, and a thin layer of sweat filled the alcoves of his limbs. When he lied back down to sleep again, he was determined to forget the dream, but much to his discomfort, there was a warmth in his pants that wouldn't easily allow it.

* * *

><p>Lily Wood found it much easier to go to sleep with a little help from her friends Chardonnay and Merlot. She had spent her second day with Sheldon Cooper in the lab, who had worked her even harder than before. He seemed more uptight and more easily aggravated than usual. When she asked what was stuck up his bony butt, he blew her off, but quickly changed his mind like a sad, neglected puppy.<p>

"Amy thinks we should terminate our relationship if we cannot embark on that messy, hot blooded path leading to sexual intercourse."

Lily burst out laughing, she couldn't help it. "What?" She had to choke down the giggles when he glared at her. "I'm sorry. I just…wow…did not expect that." Lily wanted to laugh again, not sure why she suddenly felt such joy. She figured it was the shock. "So what do you want to do?"

"Well I don't want to have sex."

"You mean you don't want to have sex at all? Or you don't want to have sex with _her_?" she asked with her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Sheldon suddenly straightened his rigid back in surprise. Lily thought she saw a light bulb go off, but Sheldon was quickly back to shifting and jerking uncomfortably until he finally pointed out, "You arranged these protons incorrectly. Again."

Lily dropped her tired bones on the foot of her bed and pulled off her shoes. Lily was hoping after their little talk, he would go easy on her the rest of the day, but of course, he didn't. She lied on her back and groaned. All day they had been fighting. At one point, Sheldon even kicked her out of the lab and locked the door. For half an hour she banged and yelled and asked passing faculty members to help, but eventually she had to hunt down the dean of the university to help her, which put Sheldon in an uproar.

On her back, she struggled to wriggle out of her shirt as she thought of the cracks he made about her thin understanding of science. She was delightfully surprised that he hadn't taken his usual shots at poetry. While she shimmied out of the khakis he made her wear (although he gets to dress casually?), Lily wondered if he was finally listening to her, or maybe even appreciating her help or her company. Grimacing, she slowly crawled to the top of her bed, not even bothering with the covers. Today she just got lucky, tomorrow she figured she should expect more poundings on both her self-esteem and self-worth.

_Too bad he and Glasses can't fight about not having sex every day, _she thought before finally collapsing into a half-naked mound of tired muscles and fried brain cells. Lily managed to roll over to look up at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on her ceiling. Either from the red and white wines or the extensive verbal abuse, Lily found herself giggling at the little green stars. The room spun a little bit, but the stars kept their place with their dull glow above her head. She yawned and swayed her head back and forth.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star," she sang before another lengthy yawn. "Sheldon Cooper is bizarre." Somewhere in between a hiccup and a giggle, Lily fell asleep, but she didn't think she was asleep. She thought she was dancing. Lily always loved to dance.

She was in, what looked like, an abandoned warehouse or club venue with tiled walls and an oddly patterned dance floor. Lily looked around, but no one was there, no one to see her glamorous red dress and red lips. The place was fully lit, but still she felt there was someone hiding, lurking in some unknown shadow. She stepped into the center, humming softly Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend". She wasn't quite sure why or if she's ever heard it before, and yet she focused more on the ugly pattern on the floor.

As soon as Lily reached the center, the room became darker and, accompanied with flashing neon lights, her song played loudly. It was sounding and booming from all around her as the lights made shapes in the air and on the walls and the floor: circles and hoops and hearts and little green stars, but one red light remained a beam. Curiously she watched it jostle towards her like a cautious animal until it moved around her feet like a laser pointer, only to dart off behind her. She turned quickly and almost jumped right out of her skin. Standing closely in front of her, with a questionably deep expression, was Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

_Call your girlfriend, it's time you had the talk_

_Give your reasons, say it's not her fault_

_But you just met somebody new._

Before she could linger on his face that seemed out of place on his body, the way it looked back at her softly with a sense comfort, and even before she could find it weird he was wearing a black tuxedo, Sheldon had taken hold of her by the waist and wrist and spun their bodies into a gliding waltz. Lily found herself neither disoriented nor confused because in her dream she assumed this was as it should be: her and Sheldon, weaving and drifting through the lights and rhythm, smooth as glass, mightier than the birds in flight. Yet there was a distant trouble Lily felt as he guided her around and around, lifting her by her hips occasionally, a trouble that hadn't manifested until Sheldon dipped her.

With Lily's back arching over his arm, Sheldon leaned in closer and closer with a very un-Shelly smirk forming on his lips. Lily jerked her face away from his. It wasn't the precision of his movements, or the incredibly sexy grin he had while doing it, that seemed out of place to her. It was the other Sheldon behind him, standing at the edge of the room, wearing the usual and expressing the usual with his arms crossed in a sulk.

_Tell her not to get upset_

_Second guessing everything you said and done_

_And then when she gets upset tell her_

_How you never meant to hurt no one_

Lily stepped out of Tuxedo Sheldon's hold and tried to make her way towards the normal Sheldon, but suddenly the scene had changed. They were both gone, and she was dancing in a unitard with a gold, sheer skirt that reached to her ankles. As her hips bent and twisted with her feet skillfully guiding her forward and back, she felt something closing in on her. Even when she spun into Normal Sheldon's arms with Sexy Sheldon waiting to cut in, she felt something else- someone else. It was a daunting feeling, a vague fear you know to ignore but keeps finding its way to the front of your mind.

She broke away from the Sheldons. Something didn't feel right. She tried to run, but her body would only dance in sync to the bass notes and flashing lights. Lily jerked and spun and twisted all around in a frenzy, trying to free herself of whatever mind spell one of them might have bound her to. The fear and frustration was building with every toss and squeeze of her limbs until the tears stung her eyes.

Normal Sheldon had to force her arms down to keep her from moving. He looked like he wanted to speak, but didn't. So Lily looked into his irritated face and asked desperately, "Are the isotopes in order?" She had to know.

_Then you tell her that the only way her heart will mend_

_Is when she learns to love again_

_And it won't make sense right now_

_But you're still her friend and then you let her down easy_

His brows made some expression of understanding her, but made no words. He pointed to her face, as if trying to signal something, but she didn't understand. He pointed again.

"What?"

Normal Sheldon scowled before reaching for her face to wipe her bleeding mascara with his thumbs. He jerked his head away in his embarrassment until she began to dance away, and he suddenly grabbed her still again. Lily said something that she herself couldn't make out, but it didn't matter, his face was still turned away. He shifted his attention to the floor between them as he moved in closer, gulping something down. Then he was looking over her shoulder, too uncomfortable to look her in the eyes, as he began to move in. It wasn't until Lily felt his lips on hers, did she feel the anxiety slipping. Until his grip on her arms softened and his body moved more comfortably into hers, did she finally feel she had regained control over her body.

_Call your girlfriend, it's time you had the talk_

_Give your reasons, say it's not her fault_

_But you just met somebody new_

Again, Lily wasn't allowed to linger in the moment. Tuxedo Sheldon had swept in between and twirled her away. They were moving a lot faster than before and Lily had a hard time keeping up. Instead of becoming dizzy from the dips and spins and lifts, she was feeling lighter, like gravity was loosening. And it was.

When Tuxedo Sheldon lifted her again by her hips, she began to float straight out of his hands. He had to grab hold of her skirt and reel her back into his arms, only to be stolen away by the Normal Sheldon, who took her wrist and dragged her away like a pouting child. Once on the other side of the room, he held her to the ground since gravity didn't seem to work for her any more, and shot spiteful glares at his doppelganger.

Lily said something, and Sheldon made his usual stiff gestures as he tentatively reached for her waist. He wanted to slow dance but the other Sheldon turned her away quickly, placing his hands on her face with his fingers in her hair. He kissed her hard at first, as if proving a point. It didn't help that he slightly raised his eyes to glance towards Normal Sheldon behind her. He opened his mouth further, deepening the kiss. It was tender, yet he forced her own lips to react with a certain power she didn't recognize. He was licking at her lip before finding access as he forced her against an invisible wall.

_Don't you tell her how I give you something_

_That you never even knew you missed_

_Don't you even try and explain_

_How it's so different when we kiss_

For a moment, all the vague fears and anxieties that had been nagging at Lily's brain dissolved with every force of his mouth and every grip of his hand on her neck. She felt both were loosening until she didn't feel either touching her. When she opened her eyes, she was already seven feet off the ground, floating slowly towards a ceiling that had long ago disappeared. She watched at ten feet, the Sheldons below arguing. Well, more like the Normal Sheldon throwing a fit and Tuxedo Sheldon not saying a word as he watched her rise higher and higher with a gentle wave.

Together, the Sheldons soon took each other's hand and followed Lily into the air. They worked together to tie a wire around her waist. It took Normal Sheldon some effort because her sheer skirt kept bellowing in his face. Once they secured her in the wire, they went back to the ground, and flew her gently like a kite. Lily enjoyed it. She cried with delight as they gave the wire more slack and she drifted higher and further from wherever they were. Lily turned her body to reach for the sky just beyond her fingertips. It looked like a sky fashioned with a royal blue sheet, a canopy maybe, with glitter and glue on stars and candles poking through the fabric.

_You just tell her that the only way her heart will mend_

_Is when she learns to love again_

_And it won't make sense right now_

_But you're still her friend and then you let her down easy_

There was a sudden tug at her waist. The boys were reeling her in, but the daunting fear came over Lily again. There was somebody else watching. She felt like she knew too, but kept getting distracting, kept getting confused. Soon, it was just the Normal Sheldon pulling her towards the ground as the other held his arms out for her. Normal Sheldon tried kicking him away, but his leg would only disappear inside the illusion of the other's own leg.

At eight feet and declining, Lily scanned the area, but was becoming more and more disoriented. Her head was light and her blood thick like she had been drinking too much wine. She couldn't see it, but she could taste it and smell it and feel it in her blood cells and on her tongue, and simply, she knew it was there. Or maybe it was all a trick of the reverberating lights. She was starting to believe it was all a trick, because she knew it was Amy watching her. It was Amy, she just knew, somewhere below, watching and sulking or maybe even waiting.

_Call your girlfriend, it's time you had the talk_

_Give your reasons, say it's not her fault_

_But you just met somebody new_

_And now it's gonna be me and you_

Then why was she in the form of Penny? She was taller and prettier and blonde_. _It was Penny's body, but it was Amy. She was standing in the corner, just standing there. No strange look on her face or moving gesture. She just stood there with her arms at her sides.

Closer and closer she was being pulled, and she was worried. She was right there and he or they were beckoning. It wasn't until she stepped out the shadow and came forward into the light, did she finally seem a little more human. The tears on her face were unmistakable. They came down her cheeks in streaks of glitter, clumping up like mascara around her mouth. Lily tried to swim up higher as the boys reeled, but their force was greater. When she looked back down, she was gone. Only a faint glimmer in the air remained where she stood, and Lily was already forgetting she was there at all.

_And you tell her that the only way her heart will mend_

_Is when she learns to love again_

_And it won't make sense right now_

_But you're still her friend and then you let her down easy_

Lily felt cautious when she was lowered into the arms of the only Sheldon in sight. She couldn't tell which one it was because he was naked and she was naked. Maybe the two had morphed back into one entity or maybe this was the real Sheldon all along. In her dream, they were all Sheldon. Awkward Sheldon, sexy Sheldon, naked Sheldon- to her they were one Sheldon. And he was holding her against him as the walls around them were falling.

_Call your girlfriend, it's time you had the talk_

_Give your reasons, say it's not her fault_

He resisted at first, reluctant to touch her at all, so Lily guided his head towards her and kissed him softly. It was like he didn't know what to do, so for a second, he merely stood there. With the lights dancing and singing on and around them, Sheldon eventually fell in sync and moved his lips to match her own.

Then the thumping came. It shook the pattern of the floor and the fallen walls. Lily could feel it growing and pounding at their feet. She assumed it was the bass of the music, but when Sheldon became more confident and held her tighter against his shivering body, Lily felt the enormity of his heart pounding, pounding.

Lily tried to say something, but he jerked his head awkwardly and looked away.

"I feel it too," he whispered.

* * *

><p>In her sleep, Lily smiled. When she wakes, it will still play softly on her lips, and she would only faintly remember why.<p>

_But you just met somebody new._


	7. Chapter 7

**If you were wondering what song Sheldon was thinking of in his dream, it was Devotchka's "How It Ends".**

**Also, I'm really sorry about the incredibly slow updates. I'm back at college, taking eighteen hours, so unfortunately the following updates will be weekly instead of daily. I hope you all can be patient with me, I will really appreciate it. I am not ready to give up on Sheldon and Lily :) **

The early morning sun came in a crispy, white-yellow haze around Lily. It held her softly while waking her gently. _Come on, _it whispered into her eyelids. _It's time. _And as they fluttered open with her lips and lashes smiling, she stretched and arched her rested limbs, feeling as if still dreaming. Lily felt so _good. _She must've dreamt well because there was an excitement, a romantic twist in her breast that felt weightless and familiar. Did she dream she was flying? She felt like she could take flight from the window into the sun right then. _Yes, I'm sure I was flying. _I could do it too, she thought. She remembered the gold fabric flowing behind her like a kite tail and lights from below bouncing off her hollow bird body. Lily dressed and thought, _How strange, to dream of being flown, just like a kite._

* * *

><p>In the middle of work, Lily found an opportunity to ask, feeling awkward and out of place. It took a few tries until her tongue finally seemed physically able. "So… have you decided?"<p>

Sheldon sighed deeply and turned from the board in his office. He was appreciating the unusual quiet. "Yes, I have. I'm going to have water with my lunch instead of my usual carbonated soft drink. I think I may even make this my new regimen."

"I mean with your girlfriend. You know- your _situation_."

"Well I don't see how that is any of _your _business." The following look on Lily's face startled Sheldon. Normally, Sheldon disregarded the emotional signs of others which often annoyed him, because how others felt internally was between them and their own internals. Sheldon believed he was never, under any circumstance, responsible for a person's state of emotion. And yet, for the second time, there was something different festering inside him when he considered Lily in her sad outbursts.

It was uncomfortable. It was fresh and aggressive, but more alarmingly, it was something Sheldon couldn't stifle like the Vulcan he believed he was, because here was a particular emotion that somehow reigned supreme over his intellect. This interested him as much as it terrified him.

"Fascinating," he muttered.

"What?" she asked in a mumble, still pouting.

Sheldon turned away quickly before his fair skin could give him away as he felt a heat breaching at his tight, bony cheeks. "You need to control yourself," he said briefly. There was a pause and Sheldon meant to continue his documentation, but oddly felt himself suspended in the silence. Was there a convention he was missing? He turned back around and Lily was standing close behind, looking just as sad and pathetic.

His mouth became dry and hung slack from his face. He was breathing funny and his face felt stuck. "What?" He vaguely parroted, being unaware of any function in mind or body.

"You're mean."

Sheldon didn't respond, couldn't respond. The words were lost as were her own in his maze of translation. All there was was her little trembling lips he couldn't pry his eyes from and the little ginger hairs that kept finding their way in her eyes. "Mean…?" He finally was able to force out of his paralysis.

Lily dropped her shoulders in defeat. "I just thought we were friends…at least almost friends."

"Well, we're….friends."

Lily's eyes lightened as the sun shines on the wet leaves. "Really?"

Her energy tipped him over the edge. Sheldon began twitching more than normal, especially his left eye. It wasn't until she held her arms up to commemorate the new friendship did the twitches include strange, uncomfortable sounds. Lily's arms began to fall when she heard weird moans come from Sheldon's throat.

"Sheldon? Are you okay?"

"I-I don't know. I don't know what to do!"

Lily laughed in her bubbles and squeals of laughter as she held her arms open again. "C'mere." She said simply.

"No, no!" Sheldon backed up until he was against the wall.

"C'mon, it will help. Trust me."

"No! Your physical communication has caused enough anxiety and disturbance, thank you!"

For some reason, Lily could not back down. Her body was more determined than anything else, like something it knew as a habit. She told herself it was simply for the new friendship with the impossible and hateful Dr. Cooper, but she was also trying to ignore the excitement in her blood. It filled her veins and thumped at her skin as if every cell and neuron wanted to know his embrace again: the feel of his arms awkwardly around her as they were once before. She ignored it because she wasn't sure where it was coming from suddenly like a flood.

Sheldon was cornered and her body was moving closer and closer. He tried coming up with any excuse, but the familiar smell of apricots on her skin held something over him like a sheet, a new comfort zone. He thought to batter her away, but the slip of fabric on Lily's shoulder cause him to falter. It wasn't until that moment, did the images start forcing their way back into memory: her bare shoulders, her naked breasts, her straddling hips, her lips just above his.

In the half second it took for Sheldon to falter, Lily found victory with her arms wrapped securely around him. Just a hug, she thought. Nothing more, nothing less. But then why did she linger with her face against his chest? Why were her fingers curiously tracing the bones that stuck out of back? There was a guilty pleasure in all of it that Lily couldn't seem to discover. It was unnerving, and yet, her blood was moving fast. Also, Sheldon wasn't making any move to pull away.

"Sheldon?" she whispered. "Is this weird?" When he didn't respond, she pulled away slowly with her hands still on his back. His eyes were looking all over, from her shoulders to her neck to her arms, even peeking at her chest, but he seemed to only be looking somewhere inside of himself. He was stuck inside of his own mind again, and Lily wasn't sure how to get him out.

"Sheldon?"

His hands suddenly took her shoulders firmly. He clenched and unclenched over and over, like two heartbeats on either side of her. "Fascinating." Sheldon looked her in the eyes for a second, the tiniest window of intimacy had come and gone with just a blink when their eyes met. Blue on green.

Sheldon suddenly shoved her aside like a grumpy child and hurried out of the office with only a curt good-bye, leaving Lily standing awkward and confused beside his desk. She rubbed her shoulder while catching her breath, trying to make sense of the encounter. _Maybe it was just another one of his oddities. _But the tender tingling in her shoulders told her something more was happening. If not that sensation, then it was the way he looked at her before storming off: the most pure and innocent confusion, like a child, and the tiniest undertone of desire.

There was that weightless excitement returning to Lily's breast, like she could float away at any second. The feeling rushed back into her body like déjà vu when she touched him, but the more and more she tried to remember, the further she was from remembering. It was like she was a child again, trying to catch the end of the balloon that escaped her little hand, just barely out of reach.

**Sorry it's a bit anticlimactic, but Sheldon is not passionate. It's one step at a time with him. I know, it's not helping that my updates are slow now, but I promise, it is worth it. There are big plans and twists for the poet and the doctor in the near future.**


	8. Chapter 8

"Ugh!" Lily tore out another sheet from her notebook. Her waste basket was quickly filling with the crumbled attempts at poetry. She cradled her head in her hands in defeat.

She had checked on Dr. Cooper earlier in his office. There was an odd tension, even with his back turned, his attention focused on the white board and its cryptic scribbles. Lily had a feeling she couldn't place. There was a straining in the atmosphere. They were stuck.

Lily examined the orderliness of his desk, fingered the finely sharpened pencils. They were all the same brand of Dixon NO.2 pencils, all filed to the same, perfect point. "Uniformity" Lily muttered.

"Gosh, that's exactly the problem!" Sheldon, arms crossed, turned around with a tight frown. There's too many inconsistencies." He wasn't looking at Lily. He didn't seem to be speaking to her either.

"Dr. Cooper?"

He looked up, his eyes vacant for a moment.

"Sheldon, what-?"

"What's your experience with the coitus?"

Lily's face went warm. His attention was all on her. She had a hard time meeting his gaze. It was purely methodical but Lily felt those blue eyes bearing into her. "Uh, well... I don't know, don't you think you should be talking to Penny about this? You said before she's practically a rabbit. I'm sure she could help you more than me."

"No, no. Penny would tell Amy and I don't need her fueling the fire Amy's always speaking of inside her pantyhose."

Lily took a breath and sat in the chair across from where Sheldon sat on the corner of his desk. "Okay, well, um," she folded her hands in her lap to keep them from twitching. "Well, it was only the one time, actually."

His name was Dean. She remembered how he always combed his black hair, he was very particular about it. He kept his nails clean and clipped, and he always showed up with Moscato, which Lily hated but she always drank it just because she like him. Dean had been gentle with her. He was never particularly nice to her but he was understanding and sensitive. He often asked if she was okay, if she liked that, if it was hurting her.

And it certainly did hurt. He had only gotten the head in when her leg began to tremor uncontrollably from the pain. They had stopped and tried again later that evening, which was more of a success. Even with the memory of the smell of the blood, sharp and metallic, Lily never thought of popped cherries or being broken into; Lily always thought of water. Some films have underwater cameras to capture the billowing when somebody plunges in. That's what Lily imagined every time she thought of that night, her body expanding and billowing. Her body becoming waves and ripples around an explosion.

Lily expected Sheldon to be disgusted, or even terrified, but he didn't say anything. "Sheldon?"

"And you never repeated this episode with him?"

Lily looked away. "No. No, Sheldon, we never did it again. The next day, he, um, met somebody else." Lily remembered how her thigh shook when he told her. Like it were a ghost pain, she pulled the hem of her skirt further down as Sheldon kept staring inquisitively at her.

"Not much of a loss there with a name like Dean."

"Sheldon, that's really insensitive!"

"Well, I'm sorry, are you still sad about your failed romance with the first boy to plunge into your virginal waters? You seem to be pretty content enough without his company."

Lily searched his eyes and felt a smile stretch across her face. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."

Sheldon crossed his arms and withdrew into himself again, unaware of Lily staring sweetly at him. He frowned in his concentration.

"Sheldon?"

His fingers started tapping quickly and his knee began bobbing. Lily placed her hand on it to keep it still. "Sheldon? Shouldn't we get back to work? You know, back in the lab?"

He stood up abruptly, shaking his head and hands. "No, we're done for today!"

"But you never let us quit early!" Before she could say anything else, Sheldon had rushed out the office.

So Lily had gone home to try to write but, now, here she was nine drafts scrapped. Everything she wrote seemed to be coming back to sex, she couldn't get it off her mind; as soon as she did, her subconscious would bring it back up in her lines.

Maybe she needed a change of scenery. How could she not think of sex with a bed right beside her? So she went to a coffee shop, but, eventually, she began writing up an image of breakfast and coffee during the morning after. She imagined Sheldon sipping coffee, though he dislikes it, just because he liked her. She thought of sun from the window lighting the side of his face as he munched on toast and talked about anything and everything so he wouldn't have to talk about their love making hours before. She imagined him stealing glances at her, unable to forget it either.

Lily scrapped this too.

She tried a bookstore but she kept imagining him reaching up high for a book she wanted, how they might kiss as he handed it to her. At the laundromat, she pictured him bending her over one of the dryers. Even at the park she imagined him lathering tanning oil over her body.

Eventually, she decided the one place he wouldn't show up was simple: the bar. And not just any bar but Cowboy's. It was known to be the loudest, rowdiest bar in town. Lily went at happy hour, before the place filled up and the music became intolerable. The bartender, a larger young man with a neatly trimmed beard, was the type she loved most, the kind that pours her drinks and doesn't say a word; at most, he'd give a familiar nod in your direction.

Lily squeezed a lime into her gin and tonic and tried again at a poem about her grandmother. When she accomplished two whole stanzas, she was interrupted.

"Is it okay if I sit here?"

Lily didn't look up, just nodded her head, trying to look preoccupied.

_Please don't bother me. Please don't bother me. Please don't bother me._

"Hey, um, I'm sorry if I offended you before."

It was the security guard from the university."Oh, um-"

"I didn't mean to insult you," he shrugged, "or Cooper. I didn't realize you were friends." He attempted a smile.

He looked a lot different out of uniform. His sleeves were rolled up and the top buttons were unfastened, showing some of the hair there. It made his red-brown hair look all the more handsome. His arms and shoulders were large, almost intimidating, but his eyes were gentle. His lips were still smiling at her.

"Um. It's okay. I forgot all about it, actually."

"Great. Then let's start over." He turned his body towards her and held out his hand. "I'm Ben."

Lily blinked at him and shook his hand like a timid child. "Lily."

"Lily," he repeated. "That's a beautiful name."

She laughed. "Thank you. Ben is...nice."

He chuckled at her awkwardly bashful demeanor. "Well, I don't want to bother you," he said with a nod at her notebook. "But I'd love to take you to dinner sometime."

Lily blinked at him again. She examined his hazel eyes, thinking of how she preferred blue eyes. She glanced at his widow's peak and thought of how it reminded her of Sheldon's.

"So what do you say?"

Lily fiddled with the little plastic straw. "Oh, um, I don't know. I don't-"

Ben reached over and wrote his number on her napkin. "How about you give me a call if you change your mind?" He smiled as he handed back her pen. "I hope I'll see you again, Lily." He stood and walked out as Lily stared at the reflection of his scrawl in her glass.

The bartender had an eyebrow raised in her direction.

"Oh, shutup." Lily stuffed the napkin in her notebook, left cash on the bar, and hurried home.

* * *

><p>There was a knock on Penny's door and, although it was a single knock with no vocal announcement, she hoped it was Sheldon. She always hoped it was Sheldon. But when she opened the door, it was his new assistant, holding a bottle of wine. She smiled sheepishly and raised the bottle. "Thirsty?"<p>

Together, they finished Lily's bottle, and Penny uncorked her last bottle of red.

"So Sheldon's giving you a hard time. Surprise, surprise."

"Well...that's not it."

"What?"

Lily hesitated.

Penny clapped her hands together and gave Lily a sarcastic smile. "Honey, I'm not a mind reader."

"Okay, but please don't tell Amy." Lily told her all about her conversation with Sheldon. "He's been acting strange lately. He's hardly working. I think it's distracted him."

Penny poured her glass up to the brim with her lips pursed. "He came to you for this?"

Lily could sense Penny on the defense. She nodded, withholding the real reason he asked Lily, like a dirty secret.

_Yeah, bitch, _me.

Penny shrugged. She was never out of plans. "Well, it only makes sense since he told Amy last night he was ready. _Now what, bitch?_ Penny internally gave herself a high five.

Lily was taken aback. Was that really why he had asked? Had he really already decided? "Oh. Well that's wonderful for them."

"Oh, cut the shit. Listen, my advice is to move on. Find you a boy that's more your type. I have a friend-"

"What are you talking about?"

"You're a terrible liar. You're about as transparent as that wine glass. Look, you're a pretty girl. I'm sure there's a guy out there pining after you."

Desperate to change the subject, she blurted out her encounter with Ben the security guard.

"Lily. _Call_ him! Are you kidding me?"

Lily blinked, not knowing what to say or do. The look on Penny's face seemed so familiar. She wondered where she'd seen it before.

After Penny's, Lily decided she needed to do a little therapeutic shopping to lift her spirits, but it seemed to only make it worse when she ran into Glasses at Victoria's Secret. Glasses had been examining a ridiculously complicated lingerie set with all the bows and ties and lacey adornments. She look unsure about it until she noticed Lily, then she made it seem like it was practically made for her, even vocalized it.

"Yeah, it's...nice." Lily responded.

Amy tried to fold it but with all its complicated workings, she ended up stuffing it under her armpit. She cleared her throat and said, "So. How goes assisting my _boyfriend?_"

Lily noticed the look in her eyes behind her thick, ugly glasses. "Actually. It's great." She twirled a lacey black thong around her finger. "Sheldon is fantastic, he's teaching me _so _much. Who knew the darling could have such a sweet side?" Lily gave one of those bitchy I-win shrugs with an even bitchier smile before strutting her way to the register to purchase a thong she didn't even want.

Nothing about her outing made her feel any better. She felt so much worse. Was it true? Was Sheldon going to bang that girl? She wouldn't even know what to do with it, she thought bitterly. This, too, didn't appease her. Even Amy's defeated look didn't help any_._

Suddenly, it all came to her. The looks on Amy's and Penny's faces. She'd seen them before, in a dream. Not only did she feel rejected, but now she felt guilty too. Lily kept rooting out justifications and excuses and reasons why she's not the bad guy...but she kept coming to a dead end with the broken hearted look on Amy's face

The next day was awkward in the lab. Sheldon and Lily hardly spoke and didn't make much progress. Lily kept thinking about how Sheldon was about to lose his virginity with Amy and probably have little geniuses running around memorizing the periodic table in their diapers.

Sheldon, on the other hand, was still preoccupied by his conversation with Lily. At first, he thought her water analogy was absurd and only cemented his expectation of unsanitary bodily fluids. But he also couldn't get it out of his mind. He'd imagine it'd be like slipping into a warm bath. Sure, he'd get wet, but weren't hot baths worth it?

"So," Lily interrupted his thoughts, "have you made a decision on the whole sex thing?" Lily just couldn't bear not knowing any longer. She had to hear it from him. She tried to look casual, so she pretended to be reading to lab reports in her arms. Mainly, she didn't want to be looking at his face when he said it.

"Well, yes," Sheldon squeaked. "I want to."

Lily didn't see him staring at her cleavage.

"That's great," she lied. "I better go file these." She hurried out of the lab, her stomach in her feet and her heart in her throat. She ignored Sheldon yelling after her that they weren't done yet.

"Actually, Sheldon," she whispered to herself, "I am. I am done here."

Sheldon, back in the lab, tried to be annoyed with Lily, but he kept thinking of how she was chewing on her bottom lip. This was an anomaly. Nothing added up, none of it made sense, which had been beyond unbearable to Sheldon. But when her teeth released her lip, her mouth had formed a glorious shape as she sighed, leaving him queasy. He imagined her naked, sighing like that. He pictured it over and over again until his cheeks felt warm. And for the first time in his life, Sheldon was comfortable with his arousal.

_Like a warm bath._

After Lily dumped the unfiled paperwork on Sheldon's desk, she stormed out of the building and escaped into the first bus to stop. She gripped her seat and took many deep breaths before she reached for her phone to make a call.

"Hi, Ben? Hey, listen, you were right. I changed my mind."


	9. Chapter 9

"I had a really nice time tonight, Ben." Lily rummaged in her bag for her keys outside her apartment. Ben stood attentively to the side with his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, me too. Maybe we can do this again?" He inclined his head with a hopeful look.

"Oh," she said as she unlocked her door. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

"Until then." Ben gently took her hand and smiled. He lingered for a second before saying good night and turning for the stairs.

As Lily turned to go inside, she heard her phone's text tone-

Penny Bitch: Heads up, tonight's the night for Amy.

Penny Bitch: It should be for you too, so enjoy that hunk! xoxo, Penny.

Something swelled inside of Lily. It was something beyond jealousy. It felt like betrayal. Sure, there was no justification for it. Amy was his girlfriend, after all. Did she think he was going to leave her for herself? Still. Lily put a hand to her hand, she felt as if the whole world were laughing at her. She was embarrassed for herself, like she were found naked on the side of the road. Like nobody wanted her.

"Ben-!"

Ben turned from the landing. He saw Lily standing there and didn't wait for her to say anything before he slowly ascended back up the steps. His eyes searched hers. "Yeah, Lily?"

She fiddled with her keys.

"What's up?" His voice was soft as he came close. His face was gentle and full of hope, and she couldn't pretend she didn't see the spark in his eyes, like there was nothing else he could ever want. She fixated on a tiny spot on his jaw where he nicked himself shaving. She hadn't noticed before that he shaved his beard for her.

"Did I forget something?" His voice was almost a whisper, his face so close to hers.

"Yeah. Yeah, you did."

He smiled wide and leaned his arm above her head. Lily felt herself freeze up. Her eyes now on his lips. They were full and well shaped, unlike Sheldon's thin, straight ones, and they were coming closer. Ben placed a hand behind her head and kissed her. Lily shook a bit, which Ben took for desire. So he lingered. When he pulled away, her eyes were still closed, and, again, he took it as an invitation for more. He moved his hand from behind her head to wrap around her waist and pull her closer to him. He deepend the kiss with the two of them causing friction against the wall.

Ben noticed she'd only tentatively kissed him back a few times and her arms were hanging at her sides. He held her face in his hands. They were almost too big for her face. "Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes and smiled, nervous. "Yeah. Do you, um. Do you want a, uh, you know, a night cap? I have wine."

He kissed her again. "Yeah, I'd like that."

In her own apartment, Penny held her phone to her lips, debating whether or not that message was the right or wrong thing to do. A look of worry sat on her frown.

But it _was _supposed to Amy's night. When Amy showed up at Sheldon's apartment, she asked, "Why couldn't we have gone to my place? I don't have a roommate. We'd be perfectly alone." She was feeling bitterly embarrassed after Leonard retreated into his room, chirping, "You two have fun now."

"Exactly. We can't be alone!" Sheldon said as he shut the door. "What if there's a problem, like an emergency?"

Amy looked annoyed and slightly offended. "An emergency?"

"What if your animalistic instincts get the better of you and I have no one to come to my aid! Did you know that the Sphodromantis virdis devours her mate after procreating?"

"Sheldon, I'm a female human being, not a female praying mantis."

"And you think I'd trust you to properly decontaminate your bedroom? _Please._"

"What?"

"Yesterday was your laundry day, and let's be honest, you're one brassiere away from becoming Penny's panty-infested cave." His whole body shivered and he craned his neck awkwardly. One might of thought he had been tazed. "It'd be like bobbing for diseases."

"Okay!" Amy crossed her arms with a horrified expression. "Jeez, I get it. We'll do it here." She grumbled and followed Sheldon into his bedroom. But as soon as he opened the door, she stopped.

"Oh my god."

His bedroom was full of air filtering machines. His posters were all covered by old newspapers, and over that was plastic. In fact, _everything_ was covered in plastic: the walls, the door, the window, the pillows, even the book shelf.

"Sheldon, what is all this?"

"This is why I don't trust you hosting such an activity. I, on the other hand, took the proper precautions to avoid any bodily fluids ruining any of my things."

Amy's face went expressionless. "Oh my god." _Well, _she thought, _at least he's willing._

Amy was only in her beige granny panties by the time she was able to wrestle him out of his shirt. It was quite a pain staking process with him. He kept getting up to make sure a corner of the plastic on his wall was secure, or to make sure Einstein behind the newspaper and plastic definitely could not see them, or even to check his temperature. "Well," he had said, "I have to make sure I'm well enough for this!"

"C'mon, Sheldon! You said you'd at least try." She looked up from where she sat, vulnerable, on the bed. Her face was beginning to fall.

"Oh, fine. You're correct, I did promise to try." He sat back on the bed with her and let her put her arms around his neck. She began kissing him without him kissing back. Instead, he kept rigid, his lips pursed tightly, like he was sucking on something incredibly sour.

"C'mon, Sheldon. It takes two to tango here!"

So his tight lips pecked quickly and careful at her own. He looked like a bird pecking at bark. Amy gave up on his ability to kiss her like a man, so she tried to incite some testosterone instinct by moving to his neck. She kissed and sucked there, hoping to stir something in him. Instead, Sheldon cringed deeply and shivered.

"Do you like that?"

"Not at all!"

"Hm. Okay, well, let's try something else." She reached for his waistband and undid his belt. Sheldon gulped and remembered something Lily had said: "...you don't want to have sex at all? Or you don't want to have sex with _her?" _And right as Amy began to slip her hand down the front of his slacks, Sheldon remembered nipples in his palms, lips above his, gold fluttering, and Lily covering her face

..._marauders? _He remembered the dream. He remembered feeling, well, different. There had been a change in him when he dreamt of her. He remembered how their clothes dissolved, as if it were that easy. He had felt awkward in his dream, as he reached up for her mouth, but he also felt sure. His breathing quickened suddenly when he remembered lying on top of her. Her skin. Her nipples. Her lips shaping his name..._marauders? _He suddenly remembered her disappearing, and, in a panic, Sheldon reached out and grabbed her before she could disappear again.

But when he opened his eyes, it was only Amy.

* * *

><p>The next afternoon, Penny was surprised to see Lily plop down at the bar before her, and she asked, "Isn't it a bit early for a drink?" Lily gave her a look Penny couldn't place, but she felt she should shrink. "I just need a drink," Lily muttered. Penny put up her palms in retreat. "Okay, okay. What'll ya have?"<p>

"Anything stronger than the wine." When Penny still looked unsure, Lily said, "Just surprise me."

Around five in the afternoon, Amy also showed up and sat next to Lily. "See," Penny said, "at least Amy waits for a reasonable hour to start boozin'!"

"Actually," Amy slurred, "I finished off all the alcohol in my kitchen."

"Even your rainy day stash?" Penny asked with a pained look.

Amy nodded and shook her head. No one was exactly sure which way she meant to move it. "Yup. Gone."

"Rainy day stash?"

Penny whispered behind her hand, "She hides bottles in her panty drawer."

_Of course no one would ever find those, _they both thought.

"What's wrong with you two," Penny asked as she prepared Amy's usual drink. "I'd figured you two would be glowing today."

Together, Lily and Amy suddenly stiffened like they'd be shocked by electricity, and they stole glances at the other.

"No, no!" Lily shook her hands, trying to reassure. "Penny, I'm drink in celebration!"

Amy cleared her throat. "Yeah, that's why _I'm _drinking so much. It was so good last night, I don't even know what to do with myself BUT drink! There's just too many dirty memories now, I couldn't leave my bedroom with all that in my brain, if you know what I mean."

"Wow, so last night was a big success, huh?" Penny easily made an encouraging smile. She was an actress after all.

"Oh, yeah!" Amy slurred. "I was so surprised at how well he did! I didn't have to do anything! He just...took over!" She fanned herself and whistled. "The tricks that boy knew."

A darkness slipped into Lilly. It settled into her bones and ravaged her belly and the tips of her toes. "Excuse me," she said and pushed herself out of the chair. "I need to use the ladies' room."

Inside the bathroom, Lily clutched the walls of the stall. Her eyes were tightly shut and she took deep breaths. She couldn't get the ugly image of the two of them bumping uglies. It was one thing to receive the "heads up" from Penny. It was another to hear it actually confirmed and, also, bragged about. Were they laughing at her back there? Could everyone see it? She imagined both Amy and Penny grinning to themselves and thinking, _Take that._

But as soon as Lily was out of sight, Amy put all her weight against the bar and said in an aggressive whisper, "I lied!"

"What!"

Amy looked around. "I lied. Nothing happened. I tried, but, you know how he is. He spooked."

Penny leaned forward. "How far did you two get?"

"Shh!"

They both straightened suddenly when they spotted Lily returning.

"It's your turn," Penny announced, trying to recompose herself, "so tell us about _your _night."

Lily downed the rest of her drink, feeling miserable. "Can't. I got to be up early, you know, to help Dr. Cooper." She didn't wait to exchange goodbyes. She didn't want to say another word to them. She didn't even want to be in their presence, feeling like she's been trampled. But just as she reached the door, Sheldon walked in. His intent was to come to collect Amy, but upon seeing Lily, he huffed in irritation.

"Well _there _you are! Where in the world have you been?" Sheldon started on a chiding rant about her responsibilities and how he doesn't take days off and neither should she...blah blah blah. Lily was hardly listening, just waiting for him to finish as she stared over his shoulder. When he did finish, she simply walked around him and left.

"Now what's the matter with her," he asked the girls at the bar.

"What do you mean," Penny asked.

"Lily has never been rude to me before. In fact, she's always shown me such good graces. Always 'please'," he sweeped one hand, "and 'thank you'," sweeped his other hand, "and smiling about anything and everything. Is there a social construct hiding in my blind spot of social ineptness?"

Penny opened her mouth to say that Lily wouldn't tell them, but Amy blurted out, "She's in a hurry!" She shot a look at Penny.

"Oh," said Penny. "Yeah, she was."

"Yeah, she was in a hurry to meet that guy, Ben, again. Remember, Penny, the guy you told me about! Yeah, heh, they had a pretty wild night last night. Apparently, it got pret-ty steamy! She was babbling all the dirty details to us, wasn't she, Penny?"

Penny raised her brows. "Right. It was...something else."

Sheldon flinched but said nothing.

She really was disappearing. Only this time without the gold, without the blossoms, and without ever actually having had her. He had never felt any real desire for an alcoholic beverage until that very moment.

"You want a drink, Sheldon?"

He sighed and sat down. "Yeah. I will."

"What's wrong, Shelly?" Penny asked as she concocted a specialty drink for him.

"Oh, nothing." He took out a pen he kept in his jacket and doodled sadly on his napkin. When Penny finished his drink, she asked what he was drawing. He didn't respond, just held his head in his hands. Amy was rubbing his back, too tipsy to notice. Penny held it up; it looked like a bunch of flowers, like a child drew them. "Aw, that's cute. Nice flowers, Sheldon." Annoyed, he snatched it back. "They're not flowers!" He unfolded the crumbled napkin and smoothed it back out on the counter. "Prunus serrulatas."

"English?"

"Cherry blossoms," Amy slurred and grinned victoriously at her boyfriend. And something slipped inside Sheldon that made him feel worse. He took the napkin and stuffed it in his pocket, anxious to find the proper trash receptacle to toss it in.


End file.
